the shadows we cast
by Lazuli Quetzal
Summary: Detective Drake is new to the GCPD, and he's not sure if he can fill the shoes of the late Detective Todd. (Detective!AU)


**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Batman, or Red Robin, or DC comics, or any ideas concepts or characters mentioned in this story! I am a sixteen-year-old girl playing with fanfiction!**

 **A/N: Taking a break from escapades with a good ol' fashioned detective!au. (It was going to be humorous and lighthearted but then it... didn't.)**

* * *

Tim's not sure what he's expecting when he shows up at the Gotham City Police Department, but it sure wasn't _this_.

He stands a little behind his new partner (Dick freakin' Grayson) and observes. The sooner he can pin down the dynamics in his new workplace, the sooner he can fit in between the cracks and blend in, like he always does.

Tim's a professional wallflower. Despite his exceptional grades and scores, he's always floated through his life unnoticed. In the police academy, in high school, as a child. Even now, as he's observing, he's pretty much forgotten until the redhead behind the computer notices him.

"Hey," she says. "You must be Timothy Drake, Dick's new partner."

 _New partner_ , Tim notes. He's aware that he's a replacement for whoever came before, but it kinda stings to have that said to his face.

"Welcome to the Gotham City Police Department. I'm Barbara Gordon, Senior Information Technologist. Aka, tech support."

Tim smiles politely. "Nice to meet you."

He notices the way Grayson sits on her desk, leaning towards her. His fingertips brush Gordon's hand. Gordon's mouth twitches at the contact.

They're dating. Or at the very least, getting there.

"Technically Babs is here to fix the databases and keep out hackers, but she's also gives great advice on cases," Grayson says. "Bruce just pretends that we're not consulting a civilian."

Gordon laughs and swats his hand.

Chief Wayne and Grayson are close, then, judging by the way Grayson casually drops his first name. That would make sense. Back in the day, Wayne and Grayson were the best cops in Gotham, earning fame when they brought down the elusive serial killer, the Joker. The 'Dynamic Duo', as they were called, had the most arrests out of any pair on the East Coast. Tim knows because he remembers the whole Joker case from when he was in high school - it's what inspired him to be a detective in the first place.

(He'd never thought he'd end up partnered to _the_ Dick Grayson, but life is weird.)

Grayson bids farewell to Gordon and touches her hair before they continue their tour. Tim is quiet as they walk through, preferring to observe his surroundings. He's memorizing the layout and location of various people's desks. He notes that Grayson is well-liked in the precinct. He's familiar with everyone, and he smiles and nods as they walk through the station. Tim notes an underlying sadness in people's interactions with his new partner, though. He wonders what that's about.

Grayson is explaining things, but he doesn't talk to Tim more than is needed. There's a stiffness in the older man's frame. Something is holding him back.

Tim gets the feeling that Dick Grayson doesn't like him very much.

* * *

The first time Tim met Cassandra, the woman nearly gave him a heart attack. It was two months into his new job at the GCPD, and he was starting to settle in. By then, Dick had warmed up to him. Tim was on a first name basis with almost everyone else.

He was working on some paperwork at his desk when a voice sounds, right in his ear.

"Hello."

He jumps. Grasping his chest, he whirls around in his swivel chair. Behind him, a dark haired woman is blinking at him innocently.

"Hi," he stammers out, once he finds the breath to do so.

He hears the sound of barely repressed laughter and shoots a glare in the general direction of his partner's desk.

"You're Timothy Drake," the woman says. She tilts her head, reminding Tim of a bird. "The rookie. Dick's new partner."

"Yes," Tim says. There it is again. _New partner_. Since that first day, Tim's learned that he was a replacement for the infamous Detective Todd (God, that name sounded familiar), but he only has bits and pieces of the story. Even though he could easily figure it out for himself - he's a damn good detective, and he knows it - he figures it would be a breach of the trust that's building between him and Dick. Dick would tell him on his own time.

There is a silence as the woman continues staring at him, and Tim feels like she's staring into his soul.

"Can I help you?" he asks, his voice coming out rather hesitant.

She stares for a moment more before nodding. She turns her head to where Dick and Babs are watching. "I approve."

Tim's eyebrows knit together. "Who are you?" he asks, sounding much less hesitant than earlier.

"Cassandra Cain," she says. She smiles, though it doesn't put Tim at ease. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Tim replies, because that's the polite thing to do. Internally, he's reviewing everything he's heard about this woman since he started working here. She's Detective Brown's partner. She's the best at hand-to-hand combat, has been on an undercover op for the past six months, and is a 'freaking _ninja_ '. Barbara's words, not his.

Cassandra gazes into his eyes again. "You'll be good for Dick," she says.

"Ah, thanks?" Tim asks, not really sure where this conversation is going.

She leans forward and lowers her voice. "He was torn up when Jason died," she says. "Don't hurt him."

The words fall out of Tim's mouth before he can filter them. "I'm not planning to die soon, if that's what you're saying."

He winces when he hears how callous that sounds.

Cassandra doesn't seem to mind, though. "Have you taken any cases yet?"

"A few," Tim says. "Robberies, muggings -"

"No," Cassandra says. " _Cases_ cases. This is Gotham."

"I haven't," Tim answers. He doesn't ask for clarification. He doesn't have to.

"Dick might be a little overprotective," Cassandra warns. "Don't let him."

"Huh?"

"You're a good detective," Cassandra says. "Do your job."

She walks away.

Tim has no idea what that conversation was about. He turns around and goes back to filling out forms, but he's still turning Cassandra's words around in his head.

* * *

"You're so _quiet_ all the time," Dick says, tossing a paper ball into Tim's wastebasket.

"You talk enough for the both of us," Tim replies. He leans back into his chair and waits for Dick to get to the point.

Dick grins. "There's that wit," he says. "Steph told me you're actually really talkative, but I don't think I've seen that, yet."

Detective Brown was probably the only person he felt comfortable with in the entire precinct. She had popped up next to him, dragged him out for coffee, and they've been good friends ever since.

Tim shrugs.

"See?" Dick waves his arm around, nearly knocking over a pencil cup. "You don't talk!"

Tim laughs. "I do talk," he insists. "I dunno, I guess I don't have much to say?"

Dick frowns a little. Tim watches as he tosses another wad of paper into the basket. It falls in, without touching the edges.

"You know, we've been partners for almost a year and I still don't know much about you," Dick says.

"I guess."

"I'll go first," Dick says. "I could've been an Olympic athlete."

Tim's eyebrows rise up. "Really?"

"Yeah," Dick grins. "I've been a gymnast all my life. Got scouted and everything, but then I messed up my knees and ended up as a cop instead."

Tim can believe it. There's always this easy grace to the way Dick moves. Like air.

"So, your turn," Dick waves his hand as a gesture to _go ahead_. "Tell me your darkest secrets."

"I… like photography." Tim says, after a moment of thought.

Dick looks at him expectantly.

"When I was young, I used to just wander around Gotham to find things to take pictures of," Tim elaborates. "And I mean, really young. I've got scrapbooks starting from when I was nine."

"You 'wandered' around Gotham when you were _nine_?" Dick asks, incredulous. "Your parents were okay with that?"

"My parents were kinda shitty," Tim admits. "I'm over it."

Dick shakes his head. "What did you take pictures of?"

"Buildings. People." Tim's mouth twitches. "A dead body, once."

Dick chokes on air. "You're _joking_."

"I called the cops," Tim says. "Andrew Lee, 34 years old. Suicide. Jumped off the side of the Gotham Clock Tower. I was thirteen."

"Damn," Dick says, because what else do you say to a story like that. "Well, now I know why you didn't blink at Steph's murder case. Most rookies usually go green."

Tim shrugs. "Your turn."

"Babs and I are dating."

Tim snorts. "I knew that from my first day."

Dick looks shocked. Tim smirks. "Oh, come on. I'm a detective, remember?"

"Smartass," Dick says fondly.

It's Tim's turn to talk. He thinks for a moment. "Ahh, I wear contacts?"

"Really?" Dick asks. "You should show up in glasses someday."

Tim shakes his head. "I look like a nerdy hipster when I wear glasses," he explains.

"Hate to break it to you, but you _are_ a nerdy hipster," Dick points out.

"Am _not_."

"Are _too_ ," Dick says, poking Tim on the forehead.

Tim scowls, but he's laughing. He waits for Dick's next story.

Dick is quiet for a moment. Tim watches how he chews the inside of his mouth and hunches over. His breaths are a little deeper than a few moments ago. He stares at a spot on the floor before he glances up and meets Tim's eyes.

"My last partner," Dick says, finally. "Jason Todd."

Tim's fingers curl, ever so slightly.

"You've heard of the Joker, right? That serial killer?"

The Joker - the killer that thrust Dick into the spotlight. The Joker - the catalyst for the events leading up to Tim sitting in this police station right now.

"I've heard of him."

"When he broke out last year, Jason and I were put on the case," Dick says. "I dunno if you know this, but -"

"You and the Chief were the ones that put him away in the first place," Tim says. "I remember reading about it."

And pouring over it. And staying up late, researching careers in law enforcement, and marching up to his parents and telling them he was going to be a detective and not the heir to Drake Industries.

"Yeah," Dick says. "The higher-ups thought that I'd be able to offer some insight. But then the Joker started targeting me and Bruce, so they pulled me out of the field. Jason was paired up with another cop, Sheila Wood, and they did the field work."

Tim remembers now. Detective Jason Todd and Sheila Wood. He knows why Jason Todd's name was familiar - because he read about this case in the news two years ago.

"The Joker nabbed them," Dick says. "There was a warehouse rigged to blow. We... We didn't get there in time."

Dick closes his eyes. "Didn't even have enough of a body to bury."

His voice cracks at that last sentence.

The first thought Tim has is, _That sounds like a cover-up story_. The second is, _What the hell, Tim, this guy's partner is dead and you want to say it's a cover-up story._

Tim reaches out and places his hand on Dick's shoulder. "Thanks for trusting me with this," he says, his voice quiet, but reassuring.

Dick's eyes are wet, but he smiles weakly. "I - If you don't want to be my partner, I understand..."

Tim blinks in confusion. "Why would I not want to be your partner?"

Dick presses his lips together and twists his hands. "I've helped put away a lot of the big ones," he says. "If they ever break out..."

"We'd be a target?" Tim finishes. He lifts up a single eyebrow and Dick has the decency to look a little ashamed.

"If I wanted to play it safe, I would have moved to Metropolis," Tim says with a lighthearted grin. He leans back in His chair and places his hands behind his head. "This is Gotham, and you're my partner. That's how this works. I'm not going anywhere."

Dick smiles back, looking a lot happier. Tim feels the shift in the relationship, that step from colleagues to friends. "My turn. Back in high school, my friends and I tried to start a band called 'Young Justice'..."

* * *

After that conversation, the unspoken presence of Jason Todd recedes. Before, everything Tim did was silently compared to his predecessor. It wasn't obvious, or intentional, but Tim's a good detective and he notices the little slips in speech and action.

Being recognized as Dick's new partner. Jokes he didn't understand. Hand signals he was expected to recognize.

After the heart to heart, though, people recognize Tim as a detective in his own right. It's nice, to be noticed for once. He'd spent years as an invisible observer. It's different, to make his own inside jokes, bonding with the people in his workplace. But it's nice.

"Rookie!" Dick calls, striding across the halls to Tim's desk.

Tim whirls around in his swivel chair, wincing at the squeaking noise it makes. "Yep?"

Dick stops in his tracks and stares. "Oh wow, you really do respond to that," he says.

Steph leans back from her desk and shouts across the room. "Told you!"

Tim groans and hides his face in his hands.

Dick leans over Tim's desk. "Anyway, we have a case."

"Another robbery?" Tim asks.

Dick shakes his head. " _Case_ case, Tim."

Tim sits up. " _Case_ case?" It's been exactly a year, and Tim has not had any _case_ cases, despite the fact that they live in Gotham.

"Double murder," Dick says. "Decapitation, of all things."

Tim's not very surprised. It's Gotham.

"So on your feet," Dick says, drumming on Tim's desk. "Grayson and Drake are on the case!"

Tim grabs his coat and they stride out of the precinct. "It's Drake and Grayson, Dick. _Alphabetical order_."

* * *

It's Tim's first _case_ case, and it lands the front page of the Gotham Gazette for two weeks straight. It's the works: a double murder, robberies, and the kidnapping of twins. Tim's sleep schedule is messed up because the guy likes doing things at 2AM exactly.

It ends with a flying tackle and Harvey Dent, aka, 'Two-Face', getting a life sentence. Tim learns to hate the number two.

And that's only the beginning, because what comes after that is much, much worse.

* * *

Tim has thought before that Jason Todd's death sounds like a cover up. He dismissed it immediately, and proceeded to forget about it, which is why the thought decides to come back when he's in the middle with a firefight with a rising crime lord.

'The Red Hood', he calls himself. Take Black Mask down, and another one pops up in his place. Gotham's crazy like that.

Dick's west of here. Tim's job is to chase the Red Hood into the claws of the officers lying in wait. It's not working very well.

This Red Hood guy is elusive in ways they hadn't anticipated. In fact, Tim's the first and only police officer to lay eyes on him. He runs through the alleys, dodging bullets, but it seems to him that the bullets are slowing down.

The criminal takes a rather impressive running leap and lands on a fire escape. He immediately starts to scale the wall. Tim aims and shoots for his hands, but the guy is quick and he risks shooting the windows of the apartments around them.

"He's heading for the roofs," Tim yells into his radio, and then - "I'm following him."

Dick's voice crackles through. "Wait, the _roofs_?" but by then Tim has jumped and grasped the metal of the fire escape. The structure groans, but the Red Hood only picks up his speed. Tim follows as fast as he can.

They're up on the roofs, and Tim can only think _what the hell_.

This Red Hood guy is literally jumping across the roofs, like he's a comic book character. Tim aims for a leg, but the guy twists into a mid-air somersault, and the bullets only graze the edge of his distinctive red helmet.

"Jumping is Dick's thing," Tim mutters, but he follows.

"You've got more guts than most cops," the criminal calls out. His voice is robotic. There's a synthesizer in the helmet somewhere, which makes him hard to identify. Tim hates how this dude does flashy stuff and blows up warehouses and decapitates drug dealers and they _still_ haven't figured out who he is. Every crime scene they hit has been wiped clean. Chief Wayne has no clue, which is kind of terrifying, because if Bruce Wayne doesn't have ideas, who does?

Tim doesn't answer. He also doesn't hesitate as he leaps across a gap between the roofs. His landing is kind of awkward, but that doesn't matter - he has to keep running.

The Red Hood ducks behind a satellite dish. Tim's on guard. His eyes dart around, searching for any movement.

There's a faint rustle. He whirls around and shoots.

"Whoa, there," the Red Hood says. He leans against a planter, as if he isn't armed to the teeth, and Tim has the feeling the guy is grinning underneath his ridiculous helmet.

"Hey, you're new," the Red Hood says, like they're having a normal conversation. "Detective Drake, right? The hero of the whole Two-Faced thing?"

"You're pretty cocky for someone who's cornered on a rooftop," Tim says, his gun up and his eyes never leaving the criminal's face. Head. Helmet. Whatever.

"You should be my nemesis," the guy says. "You chase me, try and put me away. I'll escape. We'll exchange sarcastic banter every time we meet. You'll get closer to catching me each time, but I'll always manage to wriggle away at the last second."

"This isn't a TV show," Tim snaps. "Hands up."

The Red Hood shrugs and raises his arms in the air. "Whatever you say, nemesis."

"I'm not your nemesis," Tim growls. "You're under arrest."

"Pro tip: you gotta put the handcuffs on me before you say that," the Red Hood says. "I've got a way of slipping away."

Under different circumstances, Tim might find that funny, but it's really not right now. He takes another step forward.

"You're no fun," the Red Hood says.

"You're a criminal."

"I prefer 'aggressive vigilante'."

Tim blinks. "You seriously think what you're doing is good?"

The Red Hood shrugs. "Did you notice that the gangs have stopped dealing to children?"

"You literally decapitated fourteen people."

"They were all criminally inclined assholes."

Which Tim can't exactly argue with, but. It's murder.

The phrase 'criminally inclined assholes' sparks something in the back of Tim's mind, though. Against his will, his brain chases the trail of thought, from something Steph said to something Dick said to a sad expression because they were talking about Jason Todd, and _that_ leads to the thought that 'Jason Todd's death sounded like a cover-up'.

"Well, nice talk," Red Hood says. "I'm out."

"Stop!" Tim yells, but it's too late. The guy steps over the edge of the roof. Tim runs to the edge - it's a seven-story building, that's gotta hurt - but instead, he's greeted with the sight of the Red Hood waving at him from the back of a truck.

Carrying _mattresses_.

It's so cliché that Tim wants to cry, but he grabs his radio.

"The target's escaping on the back of a white pick-up truck," he says. "They're heading south on 31st."

But even as the words come out of his mouth, he knows that they're not going to catch the guy.

"Copy that," Dick says from the other side of the radio.

Tim finds another fire escape to climb down. But he can't shake the thought of Jason Todd out of his head.

* * *

Babs finds him in the records room, surrounded by boxes, with a notebook and a pencil in his mouth.

"Tim?"

He jumps and scrambles back in surprise. "Holy - _Babs_?"

She shoots him a suspicious look and rests her elbow on the armrest of her wheelchair. "Tim. What are you doing?"

"Researching," he says dryly. There are files scattered around him _everywhere_. It would be messy, but Babs is quite familiar with the state of Tim's desk. There's a system to everything, and that probably applies to here, too. His hair is a mess, the eraser on the end of the pencil has been chewed off, and there's scribbles and diagrams all over the page of the notebook.

He's definitely researching.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," Barbara says. "Have fun."

She turns around and wheels out of the room, more than a little confused. Babs is the only one who uses the records room - everyone else just asks her to look up stuff for them. Then again, Tim's a slightly insecure and overly independent guy who prefers doing his own stuff.  
He's probably going through the Two-Face case again. There's a trial coming up, and the boxes he'd pulled out were all labeled 'T'.

* * *

"Fancy meeting you here, Detective Timothy Drake," Red Hood says, twirling a knife around his fingers. "Actually, Detective Drake is a mouthful. Mind if I call you Timmy?"

"Drake is fine," Tim says, and he can't believe he's actually bantering with the criminal they've been trying to catch for months.

"Timmy it is," Red Hood says.

Tim sighs. He's tied up and hanging upside-down from the ceiling of a warehouse. Dick's hair is probably turning gray as the whole force tries to track down where he is.

"You're so cliché," he says. "First the mattresses. Now this. I don't understand how you're not being caught."

"It's the secret identity," Red Hood says. "I'm slippery, so they have to go through the whole 'guess the criminal' thing. It's fun."

Tim frowns. "You don't seem very worried that they'll figure out who you are."

Hood's grinning underneath the helmet, Tim can feel it.

The voice in the back of his mind says, _you can't find a man who's legally dead_.

He hasn't quite confirmed the Jason Todd theory, but he might be getting there.

Tim's radio beeps.

"And that's my cue," Red Hood says. He turns to leave.

"You're not going to kill me?" Tim asks, and regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Why. Why would you give the guy with the gun ideas.

The Red Hood pauses in his walk, but doesn't turn around. "Isn't it more fun this way, nemesis?"

He leaves without further comment.

* * *

"Cass," Tim says.

The woman looks up. She drums on her desk, and Tim takes that as a signal to continue.

"I think I know who the Red Hood is."

Cass widens her eyes. "Who?" and then. "Have you told Dick?"

Tim opens mouth, and then hesitates. "Um."

Cass looks confused for a second, before turning mildly offended. "We're all on the same team, Tim," she says. "Share with the class."

"You're good at reading body language, right?"

Cass tilts her head.

"Right, dumb question," Tim says. Cass can tell what someone is thinking just by how they breathe. "The Red Hood. You've seen the footage. Does he remind you of anyone?"

She stiffens. Her eyes wander to a spot across the room before snapping back. She shakes her head. "No."

She had looked in the direction of Dick's desk. That's all the answer Tim needs.

* * *

"I'm _not_ your nemesis," Tim snaps, trying to untie himself from the chair. It's not working very well.

The Red Hood laughs as he cleans his gun. It comes out cold and robotic. "Timmy-boy, it's the third time you've been separated from the rest of your little crew to face me one on one," he says. "And it's the second time I've tied you up. I think that constitutes 'nemesis'."

"Can you just - can you just _stop_?" Tim pleads. "Just turn yourself in."

"And get a life sentence?" Red Hood asks, and Tim can hear the sarcasm even though the voice is flat and lifeless. "Dude. Seriously."

"I don't even get why you're doing this," Tim says, wiggling his arms. If he can loosen the ropes enough...

Hood shrugs, popping some bullets into the chambers of his pistol. "Can't get rid of crime. Isn't it better to control it?"

Tim has heard that saying before, though not in those exact words. Red Hood has the tone of an exasperated cop, the ones who grow bitter and cynical. The ones that retire angry and lonely, the ones who have seen too much.

Maybe Tim's just hearing what he wants to hear. But he takes the gamble, anyway.

"You know, Grayson says you seem familiar," he says, watching the criminal's reaction. It's a lie. Dick has said no such thing, but if he's right...

"Does he?" Hood asks.

Damn the voice synthesizer, because he can't get anything out of the robotic voice.

"You ever meet him before?"

Hood snorts. "Looking for clues to my identity?"

"Avoiding the question, Mr. Watson?" Tim asks.

Hood pauses in his actions. "Who?"

"'Jared Watson'," Tim says. "Who is supposed to be in Colorado, in a small town far, far away from Gotham."

"That's not my name," Hood says. He's not lying. It's a loophole.

"Not your birth name," Tim says. "But the name ' _Jason Peter Todd_ ' opens a whole can of worms I'd rather not go into. What the hell are you doing in this city?"

Hood - _Jason_ \- turns away from his gun completely. He puts it down and marches up to Tim. "How much do you know?"

There's only two words he needs to say.

"Witness protection."

Jason swears. "Fucking hell." He slams his hand on the desk. "Who else knows?"

"I didn't tell Dick, if that's what you're asking," Tim snarks.

He doesn't know why he's being so sarcastic. The guy literally has a dozen guns on his person. Before his 'demise', he was the best shot in all of the GCPD, according to Cass.

"Damn, Timmy," Jason curses. "You're one hell of a replacement. How'd you figure it out?"

Tim shrugs. "Your 'death' was an obvious cover-up. An explosion in an abandoned warehouse with almost no traces left of your body. I just had to dig a little deeper."

Jason snorts. "Fooled Bruce and Dick and the rest."

"It's kind of personal for them," Tim points out. "And they don't know what you witnessed."

Jason turns to him. "Do you know what I witnessed?" he asks, and he seems more curious than homicidal at the moment.

Tim's not so clear on this point - there was only so much information he had access to - but he knows that there was someone the Joker was working for, someone larger pulling the strings, something that has to do with: "Ra's al Ghul."

"You're bat-shit insane, Tim," Jason says. "Few people dig in that deep and are allowed to know."

"You dug in that deep," Tim says.

"And I had to fake my death and change my identity," Jason snaps back. "If the League of Assassins knew that I knew, I wouldn't be standing here right now."

Tim gazes at him. At this point, he's no longer in any danger of dying, at least from Jason. So he asks the question that's been on his mind since he first suspected that Jason Todd wasn't as dead as everyone thought.

"Why are you here, right now?" Tim asks. "Like, why would you leave witness protection and come back to Gotham and _become a crime lord_?"

Jason makes a wide gesture. "I don't know if you noticed, but Gotham sucks."

Tim waits.

"I told you before," Jason says. "Aggressive vigilante? Ring any bells?"

Tim makes a wheezing noise at the back of his throat. He spent months uncovering this whole conspiracy. He found _Jason Todd_ , a man who's been dead to the entire GCPD for years. He dug up information on the largest and most dangerous organization in the entire world. He even deduced the identity of the leader of the aforementioned organization. His _life_ is now in perpetual danger because of the information he learned.

And - the reason why Todd was doing this, the reason why he came back to Gotham - was _solely to control the drug trade_.

"You didn't - this isn't some federal government secret thing?" Tim asks, completely disbelieving. "You just. You come back. So you can. _What_."

"I sure as hell didn't come back for the scenery," Jason says. "And heartfelt reunions violate the witness protection, so that was out."

"I'm pretty sure leaving whatever town they stuck you in violates your witness protection." Tim says. "I'm pretty sure becoming the _king of Gotham's underground_ violates your witness protection."

"Look, the police do good stuff," Jason says. "But what they do is grab people, throw them in jail, and repeat when they break out again," he says. "Look at the Joker. It's easier if we just kill them in the first place, and then they hurt less people."

"You're a police officer!" Tim protests. "The whole point is to protect people with minimal loss of life!"

"I was a police officer," Jason corrects him. "But you don't know the true multitude of the League. When the League showed up while I was with The Joker..." Here, Jason breaks off. He pauses to take a shaky breath. "They're huge, Tim. It made me realize the entire system is corrupted and obsolete. Killing criminals is the only way to stop it."

"And what about the GCPD?" Tim asks, taking on a pleading tone. "You're the one running all of Gotham's underground. You might not deal to kids, but you're - you're still ordering hits and trafficking drugs and -"

"Better under my control than theirs," Jason says. "And the police? They'd be safer if the bad guys are dead." Jason turns and looks Tim in the eye. "I could've died in the field that day, Tim. And the Joker is still alive, plotting his next escape from behind the bars. Imagine if Bruce and Dick killed him in the first place."

It's logical and justified in a way that makes Tim want to vomit. He's heard stories of Detective Todd. Determined, relentless, brave. The other half of Grayson and Todd - the second Dynamic Duo. Funny, quick witted, eager.

He's spent a year trying to get out of this guy's long shadow. And now.

It's disappointing to see how such a brave and admired figure could turn his back on the people he used to call friends.

Tim feels a rush of a cold and furious rage. He lifts his head up, glares into the Red Hood's expressionless helmet. "I'll catch you, and you'll be locked up and you'll never see the sun again," he growls, because.

This is for Dick. This is for Babs. For Bruce. A man they mourned for had the audacity to throw it all back in their faces, and Tim _won't_ let him get away with it.

The Red Hood takes a step back. Tim has never felt so furious in his life.

"You hear that?" he says, his voice sickeningly smooth and cold. "I don't care if I have to chase you to the fucking moon. _You don't get to hurt my friends like that_."

Friends. It's a word he uses sparingly. He's been a wallflower all his life and there were only a few who he counted as true friends - Kon, Bart, Cassie, Cissie - but he knows it applies to the GCPD. Chief Wayne, a role model, cool and determined and relentless. Barbara, wise and smart and kind. Cass, strong and beautiful and deadly. Steph, bright and warm and unstoppable.

And Dick, courageous and loud and friendly in all they ways that Tim never was growing up.

Friends. They were Jason's friends, once, but he doesn't get to claim that anymore. Because Jason is a criminal now, and it's their job to hunt him down.

Jason chuckles, but it's less amused and more resigned than it was before. He turns away as Tim strains to get himself out of the chair he's tied to.

"Until next time, nemesis," He says, tipping an imaginary hat. Then he melts into the shadows and disappears out of sight.

* * *

After that encounter, Tim's in the hospital for a few scratches and a possible concussion. He gets a bed to lay on, though it's not that serious.

Cass comes to his room first. Tim knows that the others aren't far behind, so he says it quickly.

"I'm sorry," he starts off with.

Her eyes are pleading.

"So you know who Hood is," she prompts.

He catches Cass' eye. She's staring at him, her dark eyes watching his every move.

She turns away, crosses her arms, and stares at the wall. She can read the name that Tim can't bring himself to say aloud.

"What do we tell them?" Tim asks.

Cass bites her lip. It takes her a long time before she answers. "The truth."

"Is that a good idea?" Tim's voice is quiet.

Cass closes her eyes. "You can't hide things from your partner," she says. "It never works. It takes away the trust."

Tim thinks back to his conversation with Grayson, where he heard the story of Jason Todd. _Thank you for trusting me with this._

He remembers the difference it made, Dick telling him that.

Honesty is a hard choice. But he owes it to Dick. He sucks in a deep breath as familiar footsteps run down the hall.

"Tim!"

Dick crashes into the room, looking unusually winded and ruffled. Steph is right behind him, and she takes her place next to Cass.

"Are you okay?" Dick asks, grabbing Tim's hand. "Oh God. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have -"

"Dick, it's fine." Tim laughs. "I'm fine. Stop beating yourself up."

Dick's eyebrows are scrunched up in concern. "Tim -"

"Listen," Tim says. "I need you to call Chief Wayne. I know who the Red Hood is."

Dick's eyes widen and Steph sucks in a breath. Cass closes her eyes and presses her mouth into a firm line.

"He told you?" Dick asks. "Damn. He really does see you as his nemesis."

Dick chuckles, but he's tense. Perhaps he can sense the gravity of the knowledge Tim is about to bestow upon him.

Dick's innocently concerned expression is a knife in Tim's gut. He doesn't want to take away his partner's blissful ignorance. Tim wishes he never found out the truth in the first place.

But he gathers the courage and takes a deep breath.

* * *

Tim wasn't sure what he was expecting when he showed up at the Gotham City Police Department, but it sure wasn't _this_.

* * *

 **A/N:** **HAHAhaa. This happened because I've been watching too much Brooklyn 99 and Psych.**

 **I'm not planning to continue this, but if you wanna take this idea and run with it, let me know!**

 **In other news: I got an AO3. The link's on my profile :D**

 **-Lazuli Quetzal**


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